1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and more specifically relates to a distributed CRM system having compliance tracking capabilities.
2. Related Art
Given the competitive nature of most industries, the ability to provide superior customer support services have become critical for success. However, as the products and services provided by many industries become more complex and distributed, the ability to effectively provide support services has become more and more challenging. For instance, there may exist numerous individuals in a given organization that have unique skill sets for handling different types of customer problems. However, such individuals may reside at different geographic locations, work different hours, and utilize different information technology (IT) systems. Moreover, customer service issues may be distributed across many different organizations or vendors, each having their own systems for handling customer problems.
In order to automate customer service problems, such as questions and problems related to purchased products and services, many organizations utilize some type of customer relationship management (CRM) tool. These tools allow the organization to enter customer information and related problems into a computer program or database so that the problems can be tracked and solved in an automated fashion. Using such tools, high volumes of issues can be centrally managed and addressed. However, as noted above, many providers of goods and services (i.e., products) have complex structures in which expertise about the products is distributed across different organizations and vendors. Unfortunately, current CRM tools are not equipped to provide distributed functionality.
Closely tied to almost all customer support services is the notion of compliance. For instance, has the customer completed any required maintenance, made the necessary upgrades, and/or fulfilled their obligations with respect to the purchased products? Moreover, is the customer under warranty or have they even paid for support services? Knowing these key pieces of information not only allows for better support, but such knowledge also allows the organization to generate additional revenue from the sale of new products to the customer. Unfortunately, current CRM tools lack any significant compliance tracking features.
Accordingly, a need exist for a CRM tool that can provide distributed functionality across different organizations and also provide compliance tracking for each customer.